Largest flat owner in Germany to cut energy-efficient investments due to “decline” in acceptance

Spiegel Online

Germany’s largest residential property company, Vonovia, has said it will reduce its investments in building modernisation by 40 percent, citing a “dramatic decline” of public acceptance for the retrofits that usually are accompanied by rent increases, Michael Kröger writes on Spiegel Online. Vonovia owns about 400,000 flats in Germany and other countries and in the past has been criticised for modernisation measures like replacing windows or insulating facades that were not deemed necessary but came with a hefty mark-up on the rent, Kröger writes. Vonovia initially said it would invest one billion euros in energy-efficient retrofitting of five percent of its apartment stock, but has now reduced the share to three percent.